Cool techie style bootscreen

[sparkleytone]

hey i just thought i'd post this for any UNIX junkies out here. i know i've always gotten a wierd satisfaction watching my linux boxes boot in a pure text fashion. now i have the same on my mac.

sudo nvram boot-args="-v"

that will do it for you and now your mac will boot with the cool quasiretrofuturistic textmode.

sudo nvram boot-args=""

turns it back off.

 

[edesignuk]

And you just ype this in the terminal?
Do you have to be logged in to a terminal session as root?
Is it totally safe?

Thanks!

 

[Ensign Paris]

Nothing is ever 100% safe, i mean, my friend thought condoms were safe but he was wearing one and got hit by a bus.

Ensign

 

[Carrierwave]

Yes you simply type this in the terminal. No you do not have to be logged in as root. That is what sudo does. Gives you a very temporary access as root. This is why it will ask for your password. And yes it should be safe. I do it myself quite a bit. Just don't enter any other commands after using sudo that you don't fully understand. For an explanation of sudo type 'man sudo' in your terminal window.

-Carrierwave

 

[edesignuk]

Thanks all! I think I'll have to give this a go, but if it crashes my machine I blame you!

 

[edesignuk]

Dude! I love it! It's so much more interesting than the GUI loading screen, thanks for the info.

 

[Macmaniac]

Its away of making windoze users feel more at home Of course they could never fathom how great UNIX is.

 

[sparkleytone]

hehe im glad you like it. all it does is read the -v flag. that just means verbose mode. so it tells you anything and everything that the machine does on boot. i'm sure ill go back to normal boot screens sometime, but i like the novelty of it feeling like linux until it gets to my desktop.

 

[edesignuk]

hehehe, for me the novelty will probably ware off to But for now I'm luvin it!
Got any other cool/useful UNIX tips anyone?

 

[mc68k]

Originally posted by verbose101
hehehe, for me the novelty will probably ware off to But for now I'm luvin it!
Got any other cool/useful UNIX tips anyone?

Depends if you use *nix as much as you use the GUI. I've got tips galore, but most of them are for the csh/tcsh enviroment and don't have much of a "cool" factor.

Your -v switch is the same AFAIK as holding down cmd-V at bootup, except what you did might boot it up verbose every time.

If you liked verbose mode, you might like OpenFirmware— boot holding down opt-cmd-o-f. You can't do much here, just like Unix, if you don't know the commands. And also just like Unix, you can screw things up here.

 

[cb911]

i just typed that command into terminal. you just press enter and thats it? oh well, i'll see when i reboot.

 

[mmmdreg]

on the other hand, you can just hold cmd-v while starting up and it will do it for that startup only...just if you want to see text once in a while...

 

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by mc68k

If you liked verbose mode, you might like OpenFirmware— boot holding down opt-cmd-o-f. You can't do much here, just like Unix, if you don't know the commands. And also just like Unix, you can screw things up here.

Pandora's box...

You can render a machine useless in OF if you aren't careful (with relative ease).

I would not recommend poking around in OF for fun, especially if you don't have a second machine to google the answers after you break your first!

 

[Choppaface]

what does reset all in OF do (I'm not sure if thats the right one....the guys at the genius bar were talking about it when i had my powerbook there)?

 

[G4scott]

Originally posted by Choppaface
what does reset all in OF do (I'm not sure if thats the right one....the guys at the genius bar were talking about it when i had my powerbook there)?

I'm no mac pro, but I would guess that it resets the firmware to the original configuration...

 

[cb911]

i tried that command in terminal and it didn't seem to work. you just type it and press enter? and then you'll see the changes when you restart, right?

 

[Gelfin]

Originally posted by G4scott


I'm no mac pro, but I would guess that it resets the firmware to the original configuration...

reset-NVRAM does that. reset-all actually exits and reboots your Mac.
I wouldn't futz around with OpenFirmware, though. As previously said, you can seriously mangle your machine very easily this way.

 

[cb911]

i'll see if i can get cmd + v to do the same thing. (show the text startup thing)